The Savage Miss Saxon (26 page)

But now the time had come for truth, and he wasn’t about to let her go without a full confession of her feelings for him. Sighing deeply, she then squared her shoulders and moved to look him full in the fac. “I love you, Nicholas,” she stated firmly, earning herself a renewed assault on her senses as the Earl then began, by means of an immediate demonstration, her education of the heights to which two people who love each other can travel.

It wasn’t the cold that at last drew them back to reality, nor was it a show of reticence by an innocent young woman perhaps a bit frightened by this serious excursion into delight. No, it was Lord Linton himself who broke things off between them before his passion, burning exceedingly high at that moment, overtook him completely and he carried Alix off to his chamber willy-nilly. Reluctantly pushing Alix away from him, he straightened her gaping bodice and led her back into the still-empty drawing room, indicating she sit down while he took a moment to pour himself a half-beaker of strong brandy. “We have to talk, sweetings,” he told her with a heaviness in his voice that set her nerves a-tingling. He came over to the settee and, rather than sitting beside her, dropped to one knee on the floor at her feet. “Alix,” he said, finding his voice only after the air in the room had become decidedly tense, “you must know how much it means to me to have my love for you returned—you
have
to know that. It will make it easier, never easy, for me to now tell you that I don’t think I can marry you.”

Alix didn’t understand. “Is it Helene?” she asked, searching his face for the answer while, inside, something beautiful that was just then beginning to flower, withered and died.

“A pox on Helene—and her Mother too!” the Earl denied hotly. “If only it were that easy. No, it is not Helene. It’s the parchment.”

“What has that silly scrap of paper to say to anything?” Alix argued, already knowing her worst fears were being realized.

Nicholas rose and began pacing the carpet in front of the settee. “You were right in saying I was no gentleman, Alix, for I already knew our marriage was not to be before what just happened—or should I say, very nearly happened—in the garden. Only a cad could take advantage of your sweetness like that, but I had to have one last moment of happiness in your arms, tell you I loved you, before releasing you from our engagement.”

He turned to look down at her. “You see, Alix, I received a letter from my lawyer in yesterday’s post—just as I was about to indulge my impulse to ride over to Saxon Hall and confess my love for you, as a matter of fact. I wasn’t just teasing you when I said I haven’t been sleeping since I saw you at the stream. I’ve been like a man demented—aching to hold you in my arms.”

Alix had begun to stiffen in her seat. “Go on.”

He shrugged. “The contents of the letter stopped me in my tracks, but, weak-kneed jellyfish that I am, I could not hold myself back when I came upon you tonight outside. It shouldn’t have happened, Alix, but I cannot apologize for what will doubtless become, in my memory, the happiest moment of my life. But the fact remains—we cannot wed. The parchment is entirely legal.”

Springing to her feet, Alix cried hotly, “So what? What does it matter if Linton Hall is actually a Saxon possession? It will revert back to you as soon as we’re married anyway, won’t it? I fail to see what all this fuss is about—unless you are just looking for an easy way to have your cake and eat it too?” she ended, her voice hardening.

“You’re not thinking rationally, Alix,” he corrected. “If you are thinking I want your charms without banns, you must remember that I would still be losing Linton Hall.”

She hung her head. “You’re right, of course. I wasn’t thinking—just reacting.” She looked up again, pinning him with her eyes. “But I still don’t see why the authenticity of the parchment, if, and I do mean
if
, your lawyer is correct, bans a marriage between a Mannering and a Saxon?”

“You will have to excuse this pale imitation of an English gentleman, but I fear my folly knows no bounds. I find I can marry you for love, but I cannot marry you for material gain.”

“But all you English lords and ladies do just that,” Alix protested with a dismissing sweep of her hand. “Why are you so different?”

“Have you never, then, heard of ‘honor,’ Alix?” he sighed, his golden eye searching her now tear-stained face for understanding.

Alix returned his look for long, anguished moments before she turned away, saying with a definite air of defeat, “As usual, your arguments are unanswerable, Nicholas.” Alix was down, that was certain, but she was a long way from out. Shortly she rallied, whirling to say, “How sure is this lawyer of yours? Surely you will not simply take his word for it without another opinion?” She spread her arms wide. “Barristers, solicitors, counselors—there must be thousands of them. Surely we should seek other advice before accepting any judgment as final. Think, Nicholas, damn your honorable hide,
think!
”

Mannering stood back and applauded softly. “Well done, Alexandra! We could have used you at Waterloo. You’re right, of course. As Cervantes said, ‘Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.’ I
shall
consult someone else, I promise.”

“Right!” Alix pronounced, with more bravado than conviction. “No need to be downpin until we’re certain.” Privately, in her heart of hearts, she was nowhere near as confident as she made out to her betrothed, but it wouldn’t do to let him know. Then there was the idea fast taking hold of her brain—finding a way of so compromising his lordship that, parchment and honor be hanged, he would have no
choice
but to wed her. No, it wouldn’t do to let him know that either. Suffice it that they take this thing one step at a time. Who could say? Perhaps another lawyer would declare the parchment invalid. If not—well, she would think about that later.

For now she was content to convince Mannering that, seeing as how they were still at least officially affianced, they could indulge in just a teeny bit more kissing and such before rousing Sir Alexander. But her efforts to draw him into her embrace were thwarted by his firmly disengaging her arms from about his neck. “No, my torment,” he denied her whispered entreaties with a slow shake of his head, “we cannot. It isn’t right.”

Alix suddenly became angry—quite angry. “Enact me no tragedies, Nicholas,” she warned, obviously incensed. “This honor you speak about so earnestly is becoming more than a little bit of a bore. You demonstrated no such sensibilities when you all but seduced me under the azalea bushes not so many minutes ago. I find this honor of yours to be convenient for you while it is tedious for me. Either you love me or you don’t. Honor—bah! Sometimes, Mannering, I think you’re no more than a pompous English
ass!
”

For some reason Alix’s outburst, combined as it was with a becoming flush to her cheeks and a truly remarkable heaving up and down of her scantily covered breasts, served to restore a good bit of Linton’s customary good humor. Feigning a look of supreme hurt at her injustice, he remarked casually, “It seems a marked friction has developed between us, madam.”

“I’ll give you a marked friction, all right—square between the eyes!” she shouted. “I’m going home. Call Poole to help you heave the old man into the coach.”

When Nicholas made no move to do as she had bid, but merely stood in the center of the room grinning like the village idiot, Alix marched huffily over to the corner of the room and gave the bellpull hanging there three mighty tugs.

Now, considering the fact that bell ropes had found no place in Charles Saxon’s modest Philadelphia home, and considering the fact that bell ropes had not even been invented before 1760 and such modern conveniences would never have been allowed in Saxon Hall anyway, it was perhaps forgivable for Alix to have walked all the way to the corner of the room to tug on this particular rope rather than to pass close beside the so-obtuse Nicholas to reach the pull she had seen him use on other occasions.

Yes, it was forgivable. But it was also very, very funny—or at least so Nicholas thought when he at first began to warn her, then just as quickly decided to do no such thing, but just to stand back and watch what happened.

Alix’s strong tugs on the rope set off a loud clanging somewhere at the top of the house, a tremendous, raucous, clanging of Linton Hall’s
fire bell
. “
Oh, make it stop!
” Alix shouted above the din, clapping her hands over her ears.

Within moments the drawing room was near to overflowing with people: servants carrying blankets and hatchets; Cuffy and Jeremy shouting for someone to “bring buckets! bring water!”; Helene—still in her gown, for she had decided to dream about her Reginald for a while before retiring —giving delicate little screams and looking about for someone to save her from a fiery death; and Rupert, clutching to his chest three or four jackets from Weston that he prized almost as much as did the little black engagement book he now held clenched between his teeth.

“Nick! Are you all right?” Jeremy shouted above the noise. “Where’s the fire? Water!” he yelled toward the group of frightened servants. “Won’t somebody bring me water!”

Just then Mrs. Anselm raced into the drawing room, her hair done up in papers and a near pint of night cream on her face. Clutching her pink, ruffled peignoir closed across her ample bosom, she too shouted, “Yes, Yes! Water! Somebody fetch some water!
Hurry, before we are all burned!
” Then she turned once more toward the hallway, obviously about to flee the inferno, only to run smack into Billy, who—being a dutiful soul and not one to panic in such a situation—was running full tilt into the drawing room carrying, quite naturally, the bucket of water everyone had been bellowing about.

They collided with the force of two cannonballs meeting in midair and then bounced backward, landing rump down on the hallway floor, the bucket still firmly in Billy’s grip, but the water now all relocated on the person of Mrs. Anselm.

As everyone in the drawing room stood stock still, stunned into silence, Sir Alexander careened drunkenly into the picture, looked down at Mrs. Anselm’s soaking wet, sputtering form, and remarked with drunken incredulity, “By Jupiter, either I’m more cupshot than I think or that’s Matilda Anselm sitting there on the floor looking for all the world like one of m’hounds when he comes in out of the rain. Come on now, speak to me—or bark or something—anything to tell me I’m not seeing things.”

“Oh shut up, you old fool!” the lady shrieked hysterically at Sir Alexander as he bent over to peer down at her with his bloodshot eyes. “Get away from me! Rupert! Get over here and help me up. What are you waiting for, you stupid child? Hurry, before this drunken sot falls on me!”

Somehow order was restored and the drawing room was again returned to some semblance of sanity—the servants banished, the guests assured there was no fire, and Mrs. Anselm (now wrapped in a blanket, a few bits of sodden paper and night cream clinging to her cheeks and the tip of her nose) reclining against the long couch, her ministering children at her side.

“It was just a drill, people,” Nicholas was apologizing for the umpteenth time, manfully shielding Alix from embarrassment.

“And
I
say it’s a mighty queer time for a fire drill,” Mrs. Anselm accused him, wagging a finger in his direction and then sputtering as a piece of one of her night papers got caught on her tongue.

“What’s the sense of having a fire drill in the daytime when everyone’s alert?” he countered. “I was checking on my household’s ability to handle such a danger at night—when everyone is relaxed, off their guard.”

“We were that, all right,” Jeremy inserted, unable to look anyone in the face for fear he’d destroy the uneasy peace by bursting into loud peals of laughter—for Mrs. Anselm surely did look a fair treat. “Could have at least told the ladies, though, Nick. Warned them, you might say.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Anselm attacked from her couch. “It was very vexatious at the least to have frightened us so. Besides,” she added, yet another plan forming in her devious mind, “between the effects of the shock you have dealt Helene and me, and the putrid cold I am sure to develop after being doused with icy water, I do believe I shall be in no fit state to travel within the next fortnight. We will have no choice but to infringe upon your hospitality until then—or longer if I am not quite recovered. It is really too bad of you,” she ended rather more gently, seeing as how events had once again somehow worked in her favor, “and I had so wanted to spend Christmas at home.”

“Christmas! Why that’s nearly a month away,” Cuffy pointed out, dreading the thought of the Anselms still being underfoot for the holidays. Then he remembered the pantomime set for the following Saturday night and the elopement that was to follow it and relaxed. “Yes, well,” he began, “you may yet be home in time for Father Christmas, if everything—”

“Cuffy!” Billy cut him off. “Dub yer mummer!” Cuffy, quickly brought to the realization that he had nearly put his foot in his mouth, quickly shut up, and within a few minutes the party dispersed, Mrs. Anselm going off to a hot tub and the rest of the group declaring they were for bed as it had proved a long, exhausting night.

“Thank you, Nicholas,” Alix whispered to the Earl as he handed her into the Saxon coach. “I really made a muff of things with my stupid temper, didn’t I?”

Nicholas smiled and kissed her hand. “Personally, I think the incident topped off the evening rather nicely. But really, my darling,” he added on a more serious note, “I do not blame you for being angry with me. I was a perfect cad to take advantage of you when I already knew what I know. Can’t you see? That’s why I could not compound my villainy by allowing myself the pleasure of any more of our lovemaking.”

“I applaud your reasons while I abhor their results,” she confessed honestly. “I may be a shameless hussy, but I do love you, Nicholas Mannering. Women care little for honor when their hearts are involved.”

“Look at me like that much longer and I may just tell my honor to take a swift hike to hell,” he told her, giving her nose a tweak. “Get thee gone, woman, before all my best intentions go up in flames and Billy has to douse me with his trusty pail of water!”